Word In Your Ear

Joni Mitchell called it “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song”. Every record sent out for review used to come with a press release knocked together by an over-excited PR before terms like “psychedelia” or “prog” had been invented. They were scanned once for the odd fact or quote and usually chucked in the bin. Richard Morton Jack has tracked down scores of these handouts from 1962-1972, and the news stories they sparked, and published them in the sumptuous ‘Pressing News’, a fascinating window into how acts were sold in the days when pop stars liked rump steak, sports cars and “sincere people” but disliked “bad music, traffic wardens and people who say I look like a girl”. We leaf through his book here and talk about …. ... the ingenuity of '60s PRs and why Marc Bolan was a turning point.… Robert Plant and David Bowie’s genius for self-promotion.… the pop hopeful whose favourite tipple was tooth-rotting, crystal-based ‘Creamola Foam’.   … how PRs sold rebels and outsiders.   … a £900 Olivia Newton-John press release. … Beta Male pin-ups Nick Drake and Scott Walker. … confected outrage over the Small Faces’ Lord’s Prayer. … Joe Cocker, eternally a gas-fitter from Sheffield with “a face like the back of a Sheffield Corporation bus”. … mysterious pop acts that never made it like the Virgin Sleep, the Accent, Bread Love & Dreams, Fresh Maggots and the Tickle whose songs were supposedly chosen by computer.  .. the Kinks – “four art students who dress like characters from Dickens”.  … the promotion of pre-psychedelia Pink Floyd – “a lyrical atmosphere whose words express a feeling rather than tell a story.” … “the Zombies have 50 GCSE passes between them!” and other press release fiction trotted out in the papers. … the mass 1966 adoption of the kaftan and Charlie Chan moustache. Order copies of Pressing News here:https://lansdownebooks.com/products/pressing-newsFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Reversing into tomorrow! This week’s news events given a vigorous once-over include … … what will a Trump guitar be worth in 30 years’ time? … the average age of a Glastonbury goer and how it sells its TV coverage.   … “the Beatles in America was like Cortez arriving in South America, the clash of two civilizations. How did this film manage to balls the story up so catastrophically?”  … Leonard Bernstein’s daughter’s dreams about George Harrison and the Fabs v the all-American alpha male. … who should be next for a rock and roll blue plaque? … the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan support act who became almost as famous as they did. … why Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater is the most-streamed ‘60s track. … Hendrix and the Isley brothers’ night in watching telly. … and Rod Stewart’s genius for generating publicity.  Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

R.E.M. considered themselves missionaries against the prevailing pop culture – no solos, no old-school stagecraft, no printed lyrics, no lip-syncing, no hard-sell videos, no obvious leader – and mapped out a whole new route to international success. Peter Ames Carlin, whose books include biographies of Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, talks to us here about ‘The Name of this Band is R.E.M.’, what they pioneered and how it rearranged the rock and roll furniture. Which involves … … why their Letterman Show was a statement of intent. … “rather than bending to the mainstream, they did what they wanted ‘til the mainstream bent to them.” … where you can see “the R.E.M. model” - from Sleater-Kinney to Taylor Swift. … when ‘Mike Stipe’ became Michael. … Stipe’s first TV appearance, dressed as Frank-N-Furter at a Rocky Horror Show screening. … why rock critics connected with them.  … the strategies they share with U2, Radiohead and Coldplay.  … “Springsteen = Elvis + Dylan”. … what was in the water in Athens, Georgia, that produced such unconventionalacts - R.E.M., the B-52’s, Pylon, Love Tractor. … their ‘straight’ but supportive parents – Stipe’s dad in the military, Mills’ dad a marine helicopter pilot. … how R.E.M. “channelled popular culture”. … their pioneering approach to record deals, royalties, videos, mixing and song-writing. … and which of them most wants a reunion. Order ‘The Name Of This Band Is R.E.M.’ here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Name-This-Band-M-Biography/dp/0385546947Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Neil Storey worked in the Island press office in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has set out on mammoth undertaking, to compile a series of gorgeous, album-sleeve-sized books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history and talking to all involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. This latest edition, ‘the Island Book Of Records 1969-1970’, has transported us back to our teenage selves when albums by Fairport, Nick Drake, Jethro Tull, Free, King Crimson etc were unmissable. We talked to Neil at his home in France which happily involved …   … the extraordinary story of the Unhalfbricking album shoot.   … when album sleeves were assembled by hand. … how Island pioneered the ‘underground’ aesthetic and the cheap sampler album. … the mystery of Ian Anderson’s 11 fingers. … the “worst sleeve” in the label’s history (which involved a trip to the butchers). .. the day the Island roster met in Hyde Park at six in the morning. ... the curious marketing of Nick Drake – “who doesn’t have a telephone and will disappear for four days at a time”. … and Roxy Music, Sparks, Head Hands & Feet and what else to expect in Volume 3. Order the Island Book Of Records Volume 2 here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Book-Records-II-1969-70/dp/1526182246Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Danny Baker, the act you’ve known for all these years, is kicking his legs up again in 2025 on a thundering new theatre tour, ‘Aye Aye! Ahoy Hoy!’ “Dead men tell no tales,” he points out, “so we might might as well get ‘em all told now.” This will be another barnstorming one-man circus - as, naturally, is this barrelling conversation with the two of us which collides with the following … … being shot, Welsh cake, an olive green Humber, goldfish, when videos were the size of a loaf of bread, why half his Maidstone audience got up and left, stolen gear being hustled over Waterloo Bridge, bad things done by Rod Stewart and Britt Ekland, ELP, the Average White Band, Max Miller, Kenneth Williams’ loathing for Michael Aspel, when records become like furniture, getting £4k for a Ziggy Stardust white label, why he doesn’t miss the 14,000 albums he sold, and the record that came out the same day as Sgt Pepper and Bowie’s first album but is better than both. The podcast includes an extract from Ronnie Barker’s “A Pint Of Old And Filthy” and Terry Thomas reading PG Wodehouse. Order tickets for Danny’s 2025 tour here:https://www.dannybakerstore.com/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

This week’s events piled into a pipe and enthusiastically smoked include …   … our memories of being at the Band Aid recording in Sarm studios, November 25 1984. … why it was the last dance of the mass media and why nothing could have the same impact now. … the “household name” that made all the difference. … the real reason Bob Geldof could be involved.   … James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Spaghetti Westerns … how music is the real DNA of film franchises, the fingerprint that connects you with the original.   … why should a teenager know what a radio is? … “Live vivid! Delete ordinary! Break moulds! Copy nothing!” The tortuous rebranding of Jaguar. … what the BBC spends 95 per cent of its time doing. … how Bee Gees’ drummer Dennis Byron unwittingly invented the tape loop. … the appeal of inconvenient technology. … David’s second Deep ‘70s compilation, “a dream fulfilment” – Americana, Skinny Tie music, cover versions, the outer limits of Island Records. … plus birthday guest Mike Sketch on discovering music late in life (Dylan, Tom Waits etc). David’s ‘More Deep 70s’ 4-CD compilation is available for pre-order now:https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Hepworths-More-Deep-Misunderstood/dp/B0DCGGQDNKFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

One of our rays of sunshine in the dark days of Lockdown was Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch, fizzing clips of the two of them in their Dorset kitchen, him playing off-brand rock and roll, her singing in extravagant finery, occasionally on an exercise bike. Their version of Metallica’s Enter Sandman got 8.6m views alone. One time they were dressed as bees, another re-staging Swan Lake wearing tutus. This has now flowered into an all-the-trimmings Christmas show with a full rock band touring in December. They look back here at how it started and where it’s ended up, which includes … … the teenage Fripp doing the twist at the Cellar Club, Poole. … Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood’s reaction when Robert booed him on set. … when the “elite newspapers” declared their kitchen shows were “genius”. … where their two different audiences meet. … plans for an upcoming Fripp memoir and his 1981 King Crimson diary.  … things you find in old boxes in the attic. … how the grumpier end of King Crimson’s supporters regard the “other Robert Fripp”. … what Tony Iommi and Robert Plant thought of their lockdown clips. … and what you can expect from their Christmas Party show – which involves Bowie, Blondie, Neil Young, Slade, Metallica and an inflatable penguin. Toyah and Robert’s Christmas Party tickets here:https://toyahwillcox.com/gigs/

John Lydon is among us in 2025 - with Public Image in May and on his Spoken Word tour in September. Entertainment is guaranteed, as it is in this podcast with Mark where he considers … Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and the “sadness in all comedians”, stage fright, the day his dad threw him out of the house, why PiL is like opera, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, the “crippled emotions” of youth, why people open their hearts to him, the ghost of Johnny Rotten in Gladiator 11, the lost world of conversation in pubs, and missing his wife, best friend Rambo and Sid Vicious.  Order tickets for his spoken word tour here:https://www.johnlydon.com/tour-dates/PiL tickets here:https://www.ticketmaster.com/public-image-limited-tickets/artist/241Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

In which we feed the week’s events through our heat-seeking Fun-Filter®️ to see what makes the bell ring. Which includes … … Richard Ashcroft in the new John Lewis Christmas ad. … U2 v Coldplay, the Beatles v Pink Floyd – rock bands and the “diploma divide”. … why can we still recite entire song lyrics we learnt when teenagers but can’t remember the shopping list we wrote this morning? … “they couldn’t find their backside with the flashlight”. … the new form of tribute group: the Fall, Thin Lizzy and Talk Talk and the bands made up of ex-members who are recording their ‘new music’. … Elvis, Noel Coward, Churchill, Dylan, Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Bowie, the Stones, Frank Sinatra … who should Craig Brown write about next? … the very few people more famous than Paul McCartney.   … our search for the poshest pop star. … Beatles fans v the National Anthem. … is this the only podcast on God’s green earth to mention the Wars Of Spanish Succession? … and birthday guest Giles Fraser on Phil Manzanera, Neil Tennant, Clare Grogan, Midge Ure and other musicians with fabulous speaking voices.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear